I've been feeling like I'm not good enough, that I'm failing at being happy and I'm failing at life in general. I try so hard to find peace, and i often feel it, but im often lost im my head and having regular pain body attacks. Especially since moving in with 15 other people, in a new town, and feeling totally insecure around them. I just feel like everyone hates me and that I'm a weak failure. Even though theyre all nice to me. Everyone else is perfect, and I'm bad, just plain bad.

I'm supposed to start college tomorrow, but i cant barely handle not hurting myself during these daily pain body attacks. I dont understand how people are able to love themselves. why do i hate myself so much, why am i so critical?

It's so normal to want to strive for a better mind state. When you feel like shit you just want to be feeling some other way. Can you see though, that any trying to get somewhere else just causes inner tension? It perpetuates the suffering. Has it ever helped in the long run, the searching and trying? What if you just relaxed? What if you just said fuck it, there is no way that controlling will ever ever help? What if you just let absolutely every little thing be exactly how it is? All of reality, all of your experience already is isn't it? It's already existing. What can you possibly do about that? You didn't choose any of it but it's all here. Take a deep breath and let every little thing be. Even the mind resisting this, just let that be too.
Close your eyes and take a really deep breath then exhale all the way out. When you reach the end of your breath notice that still pause before you take the next breath. Does that pause, that gap, feel like alive stillness? That alive stillness is your own inner peace. It is the very peace you are searching for and it already exists, it's already existing within you. When you can relax and let all of the world be just as it is, it will become apparant to you of its own accord. No searching will find it because you are it. Don't look for it just trust that you will recognize it when you completely accept and let go.
xxx

Yes you can! Can you see how hating it makes you feel worse? When you truly allow your current reality to be just how it is a big weight comes off your shoulders... it seems like the most unnatural thing to do, to let 'badness/negativity' be just as it is but it really has the ability to crack your shell and let the light shine through.

brinabeans wrote:Also, I feel like I'm failing at happiness and peace. I try so hard and I think, I must really be fucking weak and stupid if i cant do it.

To surrender to the weakness can be a way to go further out of the pain. To stop trying. To give up and say, I can not fix this. Someone else or something else have to fix it. I give up, I am weak, I surrender. Come hell or high water, I don't care. Then... this "something else" is allowed to step in. To help you. The something else is pure love and intelligence. But it is beyond your mind and your struggle, you have to let it in and stop the fighting. Trust in the big unknown, that something else, that it knows better than we do. When we acknowledge that, a positive change can happen. You don't have to fix anything, you don't have to fight, all you have to do is to let go and surrender. Let go of the steering wheel, you are not the driver anyway. Put yourself in the backseat. Lay there. Scream and cry if you have to. It's ok. To accept the weakness is the bravest thing you can do. That is to be really strong. Rest there. Be weak there, it is ok. It is ok to not know. Rest there and stay away from the front seat and the steering wheel. You are on the way.

"In today's rush we all think too much, seek too much, want too much and forget about the joy of just Being."
(Eckhart Tolle)

The analogy of the car helped a lot. Putting myself in the back seat. Just going along for the ride. I had this illusion that im in complete control, that I have the power to always be happy and kind, and when I'm not, I'm some how weak and failing. When I have a negative thought, my mind would say "you're mean, you shouldnt think that." but i didnt think it, it just popped in. All I can do is be aware of it and then realize it's not me. I'm just observing this crazy mind. I'm going to have unhelpful thoughts, stressful thoughts. I cant expect myself to be in perfect. That's my silly attempt to become the ideal person. Am I supposed to be flawless? Am I the only one in the world who is not going to struggle?

Sure, brina, I feel all those things. Well, I haven't felt jealous in awhile, but who knows - I might tomorrow. The difference is in the "struggle" part. Those feelings come and they go, but I don't mind. (Little pun there ). It's like you say...it's not something we have control over. It's partly due to the lessons/experiences we've had, partly our genetic make-up, partly a whole lot of other stuff we've taken on. None of which in any way defines us. It somewhat defines the life we've been handed, but how useful is that? Not very. New experiences are coming all the time that change how we react to things.

Anyway...what Alex and hanns are saying is dead-on. Who you truly are is the awareness of all those states you described. And that awareness "lets" those states happen without trying to control, change or manipulate them in any way. That's where the peace is.

brinabeans wrote:I dont understand how people are able to love themselves.

That's a really good question. I couldn't get that for awhile either, and one of the things that makes me sad is people close to me who live with self-hate day in and day out. I didn't truly understand self-love until I finally "saw" for myself the Me that is beyond, before, and behind all the illusions about me. Who we truly are, that which doesn't come and go, is where the Love is.

Anyway...what Alex and hanns are saying is dead-on. Who you truly are is the awareness of all those states you described. And that awareness "lets" those states happen without trying to control, change or manipulate them in any way. That's where the peace is.

Let those states happen, with out minding them. YES! And it really helped to hear you feel those things too, but you dont struggle with them because you realize they are not in your control. The feeling is already there, fighting it starts the struggle.

Can you talk more about where the Love comes from? I know I cant understand who I am on an intellectual level, right? What is it that am I am? Becuase I know that finding my true self is where the love is, yes?

brinabeans wrote:Can you talk more about where the Love comes from? I know I cant understand who I am on an intellectual level, right? What is it that am I am? Becuase I know that finding my true self is where the love is, yes?

Yes. Understanding on an intellectual level can be useful, but it's not "it". Anything the mind does is a conceptual representation of "it". Actually, the mind can only do conceptual representations...about anything. That's useful for a lot of things, but not for discovering what/who we are.

So you ask "What is it that I am?". I like the use of "what" rather than "who" because "who" tends to make us personalize the question.

This is the most important question and no one can answer it for you. You have to answer it for yourself. You can do it sitting quietly or you can write what you come up with or you can just plant a strong intention in your heart to find out the answer. Or all three . I tend to go with the sitting quietly - I think meditation is very powerful.

So you start where you are (also the name of a great book by Pema Chodron). "I'm a weak failure" - you wrote in the OP. Who or what is it that notices or sees you this way? If there's someone who can see that you're a failure, who sees that? This goes back to Tolle's original big question when he thought "I can't live with myself anymore" - who is the one who can't live with the other one?

The one who see's the 'failure person' - maybe you'd decide that it's the 'judging person' - the one who's always nagging you to fix things or be better. But you see the 'judging person'. Who or what is it that sees the 'judging person'? Maybe it's the 'kind person' who doesn't like the nagging. Who or what sees the 'kind person'?

And so on and so on. Until there's no 'person' left. Just a big question mark. Now you're in the realm that is not of the mind. Just rest there. No need to do anything with it. Mind will come up with a lot of reasons to bolt! "This is boring. I'm going to turn into a vegetable. This makes no sense." Bolt if you need to, then just return to the questioning when you can.

Well, I don't know if that answered your question or if you were looking for something else. But knowing, deeply and thoroughly knowing, what you are is the waking up that Tolle talks about. I know you asked about self-love, but I don't really have the words to describe how love fits into this. But I'll try.

When we know what we are, the fighting with 'what is' slowly grinds to a halt. And when the fighting's done, there's nothing left but peace. When the hating stops, there's nothing left but love.